Pelosi: Say, those white males are homophobic gun nuts, eh?

Ed MorrisseyPosted at 10:01 am on July 28, 2016

Nancy Pelosi, in short: Why don’t these bigoted, ignorant, and violent white males realize we love them more? PBS commentator Judy Woodruff asked the House Minority Leader on Tuesday night to explain why Donald Trump has a large lead among white males, and especially white males without a college degree. Pelosi responded that, in essence, this bloc votes against its economic interests because of the “three Gs” — guns, gays, and abortion, which she assigns to “God” without a hint of irony over her professed Catholic faith (via Leah Barkoukis and Vayapaso):

WOODRUFF: I don’t think anyone is closer to the voters in Washington than members of the House of Representatives. You know that place very well. Right now, Donald Trump is doing much better than Hillary Clinton among white men, and particularly white men who have not attended college. How does Hillary Clinton counter that?

PELOSI: With an economic agenda to create jobs, good-paying jobs, increasing paychecks. The economic agenda is what is really — it’s about the economy, you know that statement, it’s not a cliché, it’s a fact. And I think that so many times, white non-college-educated white males have voted Republican, they’ve voted against their own economic interests because of guns, because of gays, and because of God, the three G’s, God being the woman’s right to choose.

That is softening. Some of these people will never be voting Democratic anyway, but I believe that with the turnout we expect to have, we will draw some of them in with our message, and enough other people to win the election.

Let’s put aside assumptions that a lack of a college degree makes someone a banjo-playing mutant from Deliverance. If “it’s about the economy,” then why have white males not climbed aboard the Democratic bandwagon? It’s because the economic agenda of Barack Obama (and now Hillary Clinton) hasn’t benefited them. The wage stagnation and lack of growth that Obama and Hillary decried eight years ago hasn’t improved, and it hits blue-collar workers hardest. These voters want change, not continuity in the same stagnant malaise they’ve experienced during the so-called Obama recovery.

It’s worth noting, too, that the demographic that Pelosi denigrates as bigoted and ignorant used to form the backbone of the Democratic Party — working-class men and women. During those years, Democrats were nowhere near as hostile on guns or God, and seemed a lot less obsessed about forcing people to celebrate gays rather than just argue for tolerance. They went from preaching tolerance to enforcing participation, and Hillary even argued for that last year, emphasis mine:

“Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will,” she explained. “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed. As I have said and as I believe, the advancement of the full participation of women and girls in every aspect of their societies is the great unfinished business of the 21st century and not just for women but for everyone — and not just in far away countries but right here in the United States.”

Religious beliefs have to be changed! Quit clinging to your Bibles and guns, you hicks! And why won’t you vote for us?

Update: I can’t believe I didn’t think of this, but Twitter follower RepublicanDore is on it: